Hangzhou, Sep 21: Indian women’s football team suffered a heart-breaking 1-2 loss to Chinese Taipei in their opening game in Group B at the 19th Asian Games, here on Thursday.
Anju Tamang’s opener was cancelled out by two late Chinese Taipei goals to leave India empty-handed, yet with the belief that they weren’t too far from one of the top teams on the continent.
Thomas Dennerby’s team, playing its first match since March, got off the blocks quickly as Manisha Kalyan almost created a goal-scoring opportunity for the returning Bala Devi in the first minute.
The resultant corner almost yielded a goal, Dalima Chhibber’s ball at the near post was barely put wide by Teng Pei-Lin under pressure from Indumathi Kathiresan. From there, though, Taipei seized control of the game, slowly suffocating India off the ball and then space.
India were made to pay for their inefficiency, some brilliant interplay at the top of the box, giving Lai Li-Chin a fraction of space to take a shot. She shot brilliantly, the ball hitting the underside of the crossbar before nudging in.
Taipei scored the winner in the 84th minute with Su Yu-Hsuan capitalising on a rare miscommunication in the Indian defence. (IANS)
